Dearly Beloved,
This week is the first week of my sabbatical. But don't worry. I'll be back on Sunday and for another 5 weeks before I go off on the rest of the sabbatical. I'm in Costa Rica this week thinking about Belonging: In and to my Body. My sabbatical theme is Ubuntu the southern African concept that I am because I belong or we are because we belong together. And we belong in and to our bodies.
And our bodies tie us to those who have gone before us: through our genetics and also through physical being. Did you know that the egg that gave you half of your genetic material formed in your mother's ovaries when she was still a fetus in her mother's body? In other words, the egg that became you was formed inside your grandmother's uterus? What a wild thought! Sometimes science awakens the mystic within me.
This week, as I think about belonging in my body, I am also thinking about what it means to be part of a lineage. I will be reading "Rebels, Despots and Saints: The Ancestors Who Free Us and the Ancestors We Need to Free" by Sandhya Rani Jha.
The book begins with a long quote from a blog that no longer exists called Lyrical Zen:
In order to be born, you needed:
2 parents
4 grandparents
8 great-grandparents
16 second great-grandparents
32 third great-grandparents
64 fourth great-grandparents
128 fifth great-grandparents
256 sixth great-grandparents
512 seventh great-grandparents
1,024 eighth great-grandparents
2,048 ninth great-grandparents
For you to be born today from twelve previous generations, you needed a total sum of 4,094 ancestors over the last 400 years.
Think for a moment; how many struggles? How many battles? How many difficulties? How much sadness? How much happiness? How many love stories? How many expressions of hope for the future? -- did your ancestors have to undergo for you to exist in this present moment...
I'm pretty sure this makes each of us a wonder. A miracle. What a trail of belonging. What a history. What suffering and hardship and what strength and resilience. Ubuntu. We are because we belong to each other, and our bodies carry the hope and struggles of those who have gone before us. I want you to consider the ancestors you know about -- what pain or old stories have you received from them that might need healing? What strength and gifts have you received from them that might merit celebrating?
I am grateful to belong together with you. In love and hope,
Thandiwe
